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Change Makers: Gareth Cutter & Gemma Nash

It’s the year 2099. I’m dead. You’re dead. Most of the people you know are dead.

You might be relieved.

Rising sea levels have swallowed entire cities, like Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Liverpool, Rio de Janeiro. Some countries you knew don’t even exist. The panic has caused mass migration, conflict and war. Nearly half of the world’s species have disappeared, driven to extinction through environmental loss, pollution, hunting, over-consumption.

Not everything has changed though. You can still watch The Voice. It’s pretty much the same format, same concept: they’re searching for ‘the voice’. A voice that’s pure. Authentic. Honest. A voice that’s real.

Will.I.Am is still a judge. So is Tom Jones. They were good for ratings.
They want a voice that’s going to make them turn around and look; sit up and listen.

Augmented voices will be disqualified.

About The Project
We’ve been exploring the voice in all its many guises: in classic literature (the Tower of Babel, Echo the nymph, The Little Mermaid), contemporary science and technology (for instance, Voice Banks where you can ‘donate’ your voice to someone without speech), and sociology (‘huh?’ as the only universal word shared across all cultures; dysfluency power). And we’ve been imagining what the voice might be like in the future, as above.

Along the way, we’ve basically formed a band, creating soundscapes using Ableton Live, synthesisers and Gemma’s bespoke ‘Nashesizer’.

Combined with storytelling and movement, we want to tell some stories about the voice: its power to inform our sense of self, and to disrupt the status quo. And using Bare Conductive, there’s the possibility of making the performance space an interactive instrument itself – maybe the audience will be able to play along too.